Fox News moves to the front

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So who's getting Helen Thomas's front-and-center seat in the White House briefing room? The AP. (Which is bad, but it means not having to pick a specific network, newspaper, or magazine.) And who's getting AP's spot in the front row? A legitimate outlet like NPR, perhaps? Of course not. It's Fox News -- and this, as John Cole notes, is "a reward for their excellent achievements in propaganda."

Not that we should care -- after all, who really cares about the seating chart in the White House briefing room, other than the insiders themselves? -- but it is rather telling that at this time, with Fox News's agenda so utterly obvious, an agenda all about right-wing, pro-Republican sectarianism, not journalism, and with the whole Shirley Sherrod debacle still fresh in everyone's mind, that manufactured scandal pushed by Breitbart and promoted by Fox News, the insiders would effectively promote Fox News to the ranks of the supposed elite.

A Sign of the Apocalypse? Not really, given that Fox News is widely popular and hugely influential already, and given how pathetic the news media establishment is, and how predictable, but certainly a confirmation that the Apocalypse is at hand.